Richard Keys and Andy Gray have been nominated for a Sony Radio Academy award for their TalkSport show, just over a year after their ignominious departure from Sky Sports.

The presenters are up for best sports programme at the UK radio industry's annual awards, facing competition from Kicking Off with Colin Murray for BBC Radio 5 Live, Absolute Radio's Rock 'N' Roll Football, TalkSport's My Sporting Life and Gerr'um On Side, from TalkSport owner UTV Media stations 102.4 Wish FM and 107.2 Wire FM.

TalkSport hired Keys and Gray in February 2011, two weeks after they were engulfed in a sexism storm which began after they made disparaging comments about a female football official off air that were leaked to the Mail on Sunday.

Gray was sacked by Sky Sports after new evidence of "unacceptable and offensive behaviour" came to light. Keys later resigned after giving an ill-advised radio interview about the incident, coincidentally on TalkSport.

In the breakfast show of the year (10 million-plus potential audience) category, Radio 1's Chris Evans is up against Absolute Radio's Christian O'Connell, London's Heart Breakfast (London), Kiss Breakfast with Rickie, Melvin and Charlie and last year's winner, 5 Live Breakfast.

Evans and O'Connell will also go mano-a-mano for the music radio personality award, against BBC Radio 1Xtra's Gemma Cairney and BBC Radio 6 Music's Huey Morgan and Lauren Laverne.

Jools Holland (Radio 2), Mark Radcliffe (6 Music and Radio 2), MistaJam (1Xtra), Sean Rowley (BBC Radio Kent) and Tom Service (Radio 3, Radio 4 and 6 Music) are to contest the music broadcaster of the year category.

Last year's Sony music radio personality winner, Ronnie Wood, is nominated again, this time for best specialist music programme. The Ronnie Wood Show, made by Somethin' Else for Absolute Radio, faces competition from BBC Radio Scotland's Another Country with Ricky Ross, Radio 2's Somethin' Else-produced David Rodigan show, the same station's Friday Night is Music Night, and Xfm's Music:Response.

BBC Radio 6 Music's Adam & Joe show is up for two awards, in the best entertainment and best comedy categories.

Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish will be vying with Frank Skinner's Avalon-produced Absolute Radio show, BBC Radio Humberside's Beryl and Betty, Boogie and Dingo's Big Saturday Show on Bauer Radio Scotland and Real Radio Yorkshire's Real Radio Breakfast with Dixie & Gayle.

In the comedy category, competition comes exclusively from Radio 4: Pozzitive Television's Another Case of Milton Jones; Down the Line, made by Down the Line Productions; Mark Steel's in Town; and CPL Productions' The National Theatre of Brent's Iconic Icons.

Radio 6 Music is also up for UK station of the year, against Radio 2 and Bauer Media's Kerrang! Radio.

With 25 nominations, Radio 4 has the highest number as usual, helped by its near monopoly of the comedy, drama and feature/documentary categories.

The scores on the doors for the other BBC national stations are: Radio 2 (15), Radio 5 Live (13), 6 Music (10), Radio 1 (8), Radio 3 (4), 1Xtra (3), 5 Live Sports Extra (1).

Among the commercial stations, Absolute Radio (10) leads the way, followed by TalkSport (6) and Kiss (5).

The 30th Sony Radio Academy awards will be held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on 14 May, hosted by Chris Evans.

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